March Dairy Cow Culling Up

The United States Department of Agriculture reported this afternoon that dairy cow culling remained strong in March, up some 6% over March 2014. That number is a bit misleading, however, because there was one more kill day in March this year.

On a daily basis, the dairy cow slaughter numbers were up 150 in March 2015 over year-earlier levels, or 1.2%.

Some 18,000 more head were sent to slaughter in March 2015 than in February. But here again, there were two more working days in March 2015. As a result, the dairy slaughter rate in March was actually 265 head less than in February.

Perhaps most important, year-to-date dairy cow slaughter is up nearly 26,000 head, or 3.4%. To date, 778,400 dairy cows have been processed through federally inspected plants.